A breeze blew.
Beneath blue sky and white clouds, green wheat rustled softly, stretching to the edge of sight, the air filled with the fresh, green scent of grain.
Russ stood in the wheat field, feeling utterly clear and open. He did not know how long it had been since he had last breathed fresh air.
Especially that scent of young plants—it was so enchanting.
"What precious grain—"
The Wolf King's scarred hand brushed lightly over the wheat. The newly formed ears could just be made out, every kernel so full.
It was incomparably precious food, the hope of humanity's survival.
He had grown up on Fenris, that world of ice and snow, a world woven from ice and blood, where every scrap of food was precious beyond measure.
Grain was rarer still. There was almost no land where crops could be planted, and they could only survive by hunting upon the perilous ice plains.
Tomorrow was never guaranteed.
Though those ice plains had given birth to the Imperium's fiercest warriors, they were also the eternal pain of the people of Fenris. Countless tribesmen had died during hunts.
They both loved and hated them.
Those hardships had only eased somewhat when the Great Crusade arrived, when The Emperor led the Imperium's armies to Fenris.
Fenris became the home world of the Space Wolves, their core recruiting planet, and thus received a measure of the Imperium's resources.
They obtained precious grain, relieving part of their hunger.
Especially that pure wheat, which could brew better mead and help the people of Fenris maintain their body heat more easily in the cold.
"Fenris, and that sweet mead—" Russ's buried memories were stirred, and he could not help swallowing.
He missed that home of ice and snow, and the strong liquor that existed only